Balance changes are part and parcel of modern competitive games, keeping things fresh and interesting, but they also run the risk of frustrating the community.
Unnecessary tweaks or over/under-tuning characters, items and weapons can spark debate amongst players, and Rainbow Six Siege is no different.
Ubisoft has announced proposed balance changes in the upcoming Siege Y6S3.3 patch which is now on the testing server.
Operator changes include increased armour panels for Castle, with less hits required to destroy one, Clash getting a Super Shorty shotgun, Melusi gaining a bulletproof camera, Kapkan no longer being limited to one entry denial device per door/window frame, a reduced Remah Dash charge refill time for Oryx, and Wamai getting more Mag-NETs with the catching area decreased.
The P10 Roni is getting a reduced magazine, and operators with a hard breach charge now get two charges instead of one.
Navi’s Scottish Siege player, Doki, questioned the changes in a series of tweets.
“Apart from the Roni change, I just don’t understand it,” he added. “Melusi bullet proof cam – why? She’s fine. Some argue she’s too strong or she’s a lot weaker now which may be true, but why change the C4 – it’s not the reason for this?
“Wamai getting more disks? Why? He is in a great spot right now, can be used every round but isn’t essential. Same for Castle with his newly added shotgun a few patches back, again he’s in a super good place, just giving him more castles because he isn’t played 100% of rounds. I do not get it.
“Why not address IQ? Give her some flashes or throwable to test in your test server, give Buck a Gonne-6 to test in your test server.
“My main point is why these operators? They are meta operators with good pick rates and little complaints, it’s like you’re making changes based off of a graph and thats it.”
Team Secret’s UK player Kendrew added:
Cowana UK player Anarchic also criticised the planned changes:
Acting as a voice of reason, UK caster Dezachu calmly countered the complaints, saying there’s always an overreaction to changes in the game.
“I still remember the polarising thoughts on Jager’s ADS changes (between “flat out busted” and “totally useless”),” Dezachu continued. “Shock horror, he’s still fine and gets picked a lot.”
It’s true that Ubisoft has largely done a good job on the grand scheme of things to balance the game and keep it fresh, and quick responses like the below show the devs do care about fixing issues:
It’s worth noting these are proposed changes and not yet final.
Dom is an award-winning writer and finalist of the Esports Journalist of the Year 2023 award. He graduated from Bournemouth University with a 2:1 degree in Multi-Media Journalism in 2007.
As a long-time gamer having first picked up the NES controller in the late ’80s, he has written for a range of publications including GamesTM, Nintendo Official Magazine, industry publication MCV and others. He worked as head of content for the British Esports Federation up until February 2021, when he stepped back to work full-time on Esports News UK and offer esports consultancy and freelance services. Note: Dom still produces the British Esports newsletter on a freelance basis, so our coverage of British Esports is always kept simple – usually just covering the occasional press release – because of this conflict of interest.
